$100M Google AdWords Settlement Aims to Resolve Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged Overpayments by Advertisers

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Google has agreed to pay a $100 million settlement that, if approved by the court, will resolve a class action lawsuit over allegations that advertisers overpaid for advertisements through the tech giant’s AdWords program.

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The court-approved website for the settlement can be found at AdWordsClicksClassAction.com.

The Google AdWords class action settlement covers a class of all individuals and entities in the United States who, between January 1, 2004 and March 22, 2011, advertised through Google’s AdWords program (now known as Google Ads) and paid for clicks on their advertisements, where such clicks did not originate from the location selected by the advertiser.

The Google AdWords settlement also covers all individuals and entities in the U.S. who, between June 1, 2009 and December 13, 2012, advertised through the AdWords program and paid for clicks on ads on Google’s display network, where the advertiser’s settings allowed its ads to show on both the search and display networks and did not set a display network bid different from the search network bid.

Eligible class members do not have to do anything to receive Google AdWords settlement benefits, the website relays.

According to court documents, a class member’s pro-rated share of the settlement fund will depend on their alleged damages—based on experts’ assessment of data produced by Google—compared with the total alleged damages for the class.

Class members will receive no settlement payment if their total payout amount is less than $1, the agreement notes.

The plaintiff and his company submitted a motion and memo detailing the terms of the settlement on March 27, 2025. The deal received preliminary court approval on April 16, 2025. Notice of the settlement will be emailed to eligible class members within 20 days following the date of approval, the plaintiffs’ memo says.

The Google AdWords class action lawsuit, filed in March 2011, claimed the tech company breached its contract with advertisers by failing to properly apply its Smart Pricing discounts to certain types of clicks. Additionally, the class action suit alleged that Google violated California law by misleading advertisers into believing it would limit the distribution of their ads to consumers located within the geographic areas designated by the advertisers.

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